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review many of the innovations and inventors that are transforming our world. As a student of Innovation Studies here at PLU, I find it intriguing to review these diverse innovations each year and consider how they came to be. As we include different artistic, historical, ethical, and business perspectives in our coursework, it is fascinating to see how these dynamics have worked together in industry and shaped society. Many of the social innovations have made a lasting, positive impact in the world

March 14, 2011 Embracing the past to learn about the future To understand the future there is a need to understand the past. Angie Hambrick, director of the Pacific Lutheran University Diversity Center, said too many people have forgotten the past.“We’re so wrapped up in our present,” she said. “There’s a connection between the past and what’s happening in the present. You can’t forget about history.” Hambrick said it is the lack of historical knowledge that led to the development of this

it is. Straight forward and also exciting. I think it’s interesting that the study of innovation, for you, starts with learning from historical contexts. Since WWII, nations around the world have focused on technological innovation, imagining that product development and new initiatives will boost their economies and measures like Gross Domestic Product (GDP). Innovation now is considered a positive thing, but it hasn’t always seemed beneficial. It used to be that new ideas were viewed cautiously

course and led students through the Holocaust, Armenian, Cambodian, Rwandan and Native American genocides. Each genocide is its own unit with its own texts, explored both individually and comparatively, through a combination of historical texts, films, memoirs, and first-person testimonies. This fall, Marcus and Griech-Polelle had funding to invite survivors and/or descendants of survivors from each genocide studied in the course, thus giving students a more personal and immediate way to think about

consultancy shop. I got to see that hundreds of people with non-traditional resumes in finance were finding great gigs, making good money and seemingly independent. And I was like, ‘Wow, I guess I could segue with my behavioral background.’ And that’s how it started.”Psychology at PLUPLU’s psychology major provides a core set of courses covering research methodology, statistics, and historical and systemic perspectives. In addition, professors offer seminar-level courses in their own specialties, ranging

course of their future careers. Faculty members I talk to often say that meeting the challenge of “naming” the value of their disciplines to nonmajor and undecided students is crucial to how such students engage their courses. Some say they do this by telling origin stories or the greatest historical accomplishments of their field. Others point to the elements of their discipline that are highly sought after by employers across all sectors. When students can discern the value specific to their